Other People’s Faults

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” — Galatians 6:2 (KJV)

Living closely with other people means living with their annoying habits, and Thomas lived with the same group of men for seventy years. He had thought hard about how to handle other people’s faults.

His first piece of advice is to look at yourself before you judge others. “Turn your attention upon yourself and beware of judging the deeds of other men,” he says, because when we judge others we often get it wrong and easily sin, whereas examining ourselves “is always profitable.” He notices how often our feelings twist the picture: “We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be.”

Then he points out how unfair we can be without realising it:

“We want them to be perfect, yet we do not correct our own faults. We wish them to be severely corrected, yet we will not correct ourselves.”

Rules for them, freedom for us. He sums it up with a question that is hard to answer: “If you cannot make yourself what you would wish to be, how can you bend others to your will?” You cannot even fix yourself. Why expect to fix everyone else?

So his advice is patience:

“Try to bear patiently with the defects and infirmities of others, whatever they may be, because you also have many a fault which others must endure.”

That last part is humbling. You are somebody else’s annoying person. Your family, your friends, your teammates are putting up with things about you too.

This doesn’t mean never speaking up. Thomas says that if you have spoken to someone once or twice about a problem and they don’t change, don’t keep arguing; hand it over to God, “for God knows well how to turn evil to good.” And of course, if someone is hurting you or others, that is different. Tell an adult who can help.

Finally, he explains why God made us all so imperfect together: so “that we may learn to bear with one another’s burdens, for there is no man without fault, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself nor wise enough. Hence we must support one another, console one another, mutually help, counsel, and advise.”

One thing to do this week: think of one person whose habits really get to you. This week, pray for them by name each day, and ask God to show you one thing about yourself that other people have to put up with.